Why Did Poland Succeed After 1989, While Ukraine Did Not?
From a Shared Starting Point to Different Realities: Poland and Ukraine After the Fall of Communism.
In this episode, the authors compare the post–World War II trajectories of the Polish and Ukrainian nations, dive into the context of the 1990s, and analyze the key decisions that shaped the development of both countries. They seek to answer the question: what lessons can Ukraine learn from Poland’s experience?
The 1990s were a time of great hope and tough challenges for many countries in Central and Eastern Europe. The collapse of the USSR opened the door to radical change, but the path toward democracy and economic prosperity turned out to be vastly different for neighboring nations. Why did Poland—whose economy in the late 1980s was in worse shape than that of Soviet Ukraine—become a model of reform and modernization in the 1990s, while newly independent Ukraine became mired in corruption, oligarchy, and political instability?
To explore these questions further, watch the latest film on the Realna Istorija channel.
As in previous episodes, we invited leading scholars from both countries to the discussion:
- Wojciech Konończuk, Director of the Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW), Poland
- Prof. Ihor Tsependa, Rector of Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University, Ukraine.
This was the third episode in a series exploring the history of Polish-Ukrainian relations. The project is carried out in cooperation with the Ukrainian history channel “Realna Istorija.”